SillyWords

SillyWords 2.0 makes your writings a bit more challenging for your readers. Each word in a text is scrambled by placing the letters in a different order. Use it to test the mental abilities of your family members, to write your shopping lists, or try it in your love letters or application letters.

SillyWords is the solution for minkukels with writer's block. The current version offers 5 different scrambling methods:

Scramble entire word

First letter fixed

Last letter fixed

First and last letter fixed

Mirror words

SillyWords 2.0 is FREEWARE. You can now use SillyWords without restrictions and without time limit.

How to use SillyWords

Using SillyWords is easy. Just type or paste some text, then click the Scramble Button. The scrambled text will appear. You can click the Scramble Button several times for different results. The program will handle text of maximum 8,000 characters length.

You can also load text from a text file. Use the File -> Open menu to select a text file. SillyWords will use only the first 8,000 characters of the file.

If you want to scramble some text that was written in your favorite word processor, just select the text, copy it to the clipboard (Ctrl-C), paste it in SillyWords (Ctrl-V), scramble it, copy the scrambled text, and paste it back into your word processor. To copy the scrambled text to the clipboard, first select all text (double click the text box) followed by Ctrl-C.

Scramble entire word

The entire word is scrambled by placing all letters in a random order. Any sequence of letters is considered a word. Numbers and other characters (e.g. @,#,$,%,^,&,*) stay in their original positions. So “5,000,000” remains “5,000,000”, but “five million” could become “fvie inmlloi”.

With this option the text becomes often quite unreadable, even if it contains only short words. For example:

"Once upon a time in the west"

may end up as

"cOen ounp a mtei ni teh swte"

Sentences with longer words will be very difficult to read. To make it more easy, try scrambling words while keeping the first letter or the last letter, or both fixed in their original position

First letter fixed

The first letter of each word will remain in its original position while the other letters will be placed at random.

For example:

“I am an imbecile. I see only half of the picture.”

(Hercule Poirot)

may become:

“I am an ieemilcb. I see olyn hlfa of the ptriceu.”

Last letter fixed

The last letter of each word will remain in its original position while the other letters will be placed at random.

For example:

"A wizard is never late, nor is he early, he arrives precisely when he means to.”

(Gandalf in Lord of the Rings)

may become:

“A rzaiwd is eevnr alte, nor is he larey, he verrias cspeilery hwen he neams to.”

First and last letter fixed

The first and last letter of each word will remain in its original position while the other letters will be placed at random.

For example:

“The truth is a beautiful and terrible thing, and should therefore be treated with caution."

(Albus Dumbledore in: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone)

may be scramble into:

“The trtuh is a baitueful and trieblre thnig, and slouhd therrfoee be teterad wtih cuioatn. “

Note that the following text can be found in several places on the internet:

“According to a researcher at Cambridge University, it doesn’t matter in what order the letters in a word are, the only important thing is that the first and last letter be at the right place. The rest can be a total mess and you can still read it without problem. This is because the human mind does not read every letter by itself but the word as a whole."

With SillyWords you can test this. You will find that it is generally true for sentences with not too many long words. Shorter words don’t give many problems. With 3 or less characters the word doesn’t change at all. In four letter words (you konw waht I mena) only the two letters in the middle may or may not change position. But words such as “cnevinraoitsosm” or “onieuntrsoovccies” are less easy to decipher (“conservationism” and “overconscientious”)

Mirror words

Each word is read backwards, from the last to the first letter.

For example:

“It is our choices…that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.”

Note for minkukels: The “mirror words” option gives always the same result, so stop hitting the Scramble Button.

Settings

The Settings menu can be used to change font and background color of the two text boxes. The program will remember these settings for the next time you run the program. Use Settings -> Default to restore the original font and colors.